New Look, Same Great Sandbox

In Update 22.1, released in December 2018, we included a new logo (above) in the main menu of Universe Sandbox. The design is a small evolution of our last logo, but most importantly, we removed the 2 exponent. We’re no longer calling it Universe Sandbox ². Now it’s just Universe Sandbox.

We’re continuing to make this name and logo change everywhere we appear across the web. It’s a small distinction, but our reasons for changing it are significant:

1. It was confusing to say
Was it “Universe Sandbox Squared”? Or was it “Universe Sandbox Two”? Up to you!

2. It was hard to type
Do you know how to type a ² on your keyboard? No? Most of us didn’t either. And it was rare that YouTubers, journalists, or anyone else talking about Universe Sandbox would bother to find out how instead of just typing a normal “2.” We don’t blame them.

3. And most importantly, Universe Sandbox is here to stay
Sometimes people ask us when Universe Sandbox 3 is coming. Naming confusion aside, this is their question: when is a new version of Universe Sandbox going to be made? Our answer is that we have no plans for an entirely new version. There will be many more updates with new features, content, improvements, and bug fixes, but these are all planned for the current version of Universe Sandbox. Our roadmap stretches far into the future; we hope to continue to build, maintain, and research new technologies for Universe Sandbox so we can keep development going for a long time to come.

Universe Sandbox & Universe Sandbox Legacy

If you want to make your head spin, you can trace the history of the slight name changes that have been going on since the very first version of Universe Sandbox over a decade ago. (Here’s a sample: What we’re now calling Universe Sandbox was Universe Sandbox ², but when Universe Sandbox Legacy was called Universe Sandbox v2, before it was just Universe Sandbox, the now-called Universe Sandbox was actually referred to as Universe Sandbox 3, before being changed to Universe Sandbox ². Yep.)

But there are really only two things you need to know: There’s Universe Sandbox Legacy, which is the original Steam version released in 2011. And then there’s Universe Sandbox, which is the latest version now available on Steam Early Access, aka the version we hope you’ll be playing for years to come.